


in genua procumbo

by decidingdolan



Category: Kings
Genre: Gen, M/M, Maze of thoughts, Musing, Other, Retrospect, introspect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-30
Updated: 2014-04-30
Packaged: 2018-01-21 08:29:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1544324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decidingdolan/pseuds/decidingdolan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He kneels. And it all comes crashing down. A Jack Benjamin introspection.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in genua procumbo

He pulled.

He pulled and took steps back, trying to regain his strength. Pulled, with gritted teeth. Pulled, with hands locked, firm, on the rope, pressed against the fabric, the friction scratching on his palm, digging red, burnt marks.

He pulled. He’s breathing hard, air catching at his throat, lungs heated by fire.

Steady. Steady.

Steady, on a steadfast heart.

Steady. Unyielding.

He’s yelling, words, nonsense, cries, erupting from his chest. Protesting. Wanting to be heard. Wanting to be known.

He pulled.

His body gave in, his shoulders launched forwards, his legs following. Skidmarks on the dirt. Grass on his knees.

It’s a useless tug-of-war. Futile. Wasted.

The rope stretched and split in half.

And he’s sitting, cross-legged, on the grass. Invisible, isolated, a pariah.

“Kiss the ground I walk on,” said the Great Silas.

The battle was lost. The king had won. There was no crown. No priest. No proper ceremony. No crown but a false crown that barely grazed his head. A false crown for a false king. (You fool. You goddamned, naive fool.)

Rocks weighed deep, falling into the endless pit that was his heart. There was a lump in his throat. Tears were at the outlines of his eyes, on the verge of falling, but did not. Heat radiated through his skin, and his face flushed.

He _was_ the center of attention. He had played the prince, the façade in the public’s eye, and the embodiment of lies behind closed doors and at the top of the stairs, off-limits to his guards. He’s used to the ominous feeling of being watched, the spotlight that stalked and followed him like a second shadow. He’s used to crowds, swarms, boisterous herds of reporters, with their weapons of choice and the obnoxious flashing of digital cameras. He’s used to clandestine meetings, midnight signals, secret codes, and those few good people he allowed himself to trust.

But then.

“Kiss the ground I walk on,” said the Great Silas.

The shell around him shattered.

They were seeing him. Seeing through him.

His mother. Bless her soul. For still loving and never giving up on him.

His sister. Older by a hair, a fact he would never let her forget. A hopeful reformer, a proper princess.

(They used to be close. Weren’t they? “You used to tell me everything,” he remembered her saying, over a shared bottle of wine, that evening he was attempting to drown his regrets, his past, his attempt at living a reality he desired, in the quick, dizzying spell of alcohol. They were close. Once. When years, time itself hadn’t pulled them apart, created a rift. When he went his way to prep school and returned, the compass in his heart reset. When he grew accustomed to exaggerated, ironic displays of the lavishness and spending his time in dimly lit, wildly colored backgrounds of clubs, as the prodigal prince, and she grew accustomed to traditions, rules, fixed boundaries and sincere ( _sincere_!) pleasing of the public and spending her time as the idealistic princess.)

His…fiance. That perfunctory, sweet-faced, good-natured Jane Doe, a lifeless doll, a mannequin clinging to his arm, a puppet which he once held the strings of. (He’d handed control over to his mother when he slid the ring on her finger.)

(What would he do with her now?)

(What could he do with her now?)

His Thomasina. She was there. She’s always been there. A prescence felt, remembered, treasured, a reliable source of comfort. Dependable, loyal. The Family’s. And nobody else’s. That she knew him better than he knew himself, he was aware. That her gaze would cut through his guilt-ridden, sinned soul, he was not.

Crown Prince. Second in line to the throne.

One day. One day. _One day._

They all kept telling him.

Butterflies.

Signs.

That He would come to him. Someday.

But He hadn’t, and wouldn’t.

Crown Prince.

And that’s all he would ever be.

Crown Prince.

What a load of bullshit.

“Kiss the ground I walk on,” said the Great Silas.

And his muscles tensed. He stepped forward. He was close. The man he had called Father, the man he loved and would kill for his affections, the man who had once sat by his side and told him he would be good enough, proper enough, brave enough, strong enough, to sit in his place and wear his crown and govern his people, one day, that man, was seated a few feet away. In his mind, warped realities and slowed seconds of time, Silas was miles, miles off into the distance.

He knelt, and it all came crashing down.

There’s hesitation. Anger. This was humiliation, this was a moment of hell. This was his punishment for straying out of lines, for conspiring, for the unwanted coup d’etat. He knew, but he hesitated. Raised his eyes to the man sitting above, unfliching.

“Your mouth’s been in dirtier places,” was the snide remark, bullets to his heart.

But did he regret any of it?

None.

The answer was clear. None. God had made him this way. A perversion to nature, an opposition to the norms, lusting after what society frowned upon. His body was a cage, a personal trap. His mind, his feelings controlled, locked in place. Shut down. A life lived in a series of nights he wanted to remember and didn’t. A string of hotel rooms and greedy, selfish swallowings of temporary, transient love, even for few short hours. Clothes hurriedly thrown off, skin that longed to be touched, lips that darted forward to be kissed. Lights turned off and identities forgotten.

And then he met Joseph, and lights shone a little brighter.

Hope was a dream, he always had known. But life mattered in moments, moments spent and fleeting, moments when something clicked inside him and happiness revealed itself—actual happiness, the proper kind, the kind defined and mentioned and once thought impossible to feel, actual happiness, the kind that permeated, invaded his consciousness and taught him to appreciate the sun’s warmth and each breath he took. Actual happiness, when he wanted, not needed, Joseph at his side, when his heart laughed along to Joseph’s laughs, when all his ears wanted to hear was Joseph’s voice, when his body (oh how they fitted together as one) felt complete, whole, with Joseph’s. When he’s never been so eager to please, to watch that face contort in ectasy as he worked his lips on him. When all his world, the worries, the restrictions, the numbness he wanted to feel, were washed away, gone, the minute his lips were pressed against Joseph’s, his hands wandering, exploring the body he’s never tired of claiming.

Mine. Mine. Mine.

It’s a rhythm in his head.

There were marks on Joseph, red, faint scars on his neck, lasting for at most days. He loved. He loved.

And look how that turned out.

No regrets, he had told himself a long time ago (him and that bottle of red wine).

No regrets, like that old Piaf song.

He felt. He lived. He loved.

He had touched what was real. He had confessed. He had lost himself to one who’s lost from life, but no regrets.

His eyes stung, but fuck if he would crumble and display even the slightest hint of weakness.

Not to all these people. Not to him, the Great Silas. Not to Him.

So he bent down, body yet quivering against his will, face level with the ground. Silas’s eyes burning in the back of his head.

The floor was cold, his lips told him. They brushed the hard surface, brief, interminable, agonizing.

Was this what it felt like?

Stabbing himself through the heart with the knife his father had given him. Losing. Surrendering and waving a white flag he wanted to tear to pieces. Forced to let go of his side of the rope that he had been holding onto and hoping (in spite of the meager possibilities and the solid, bare obstacles reality had set against him) to win. Set up on his knees, shamed by eyes and mocked by his own consciousness, damned by the demons in his mind.

Why.

_Why._

But it was a lone sign in the woods. Darkness was closing in, and the wooden sign, the arrow’s direction, pointed to only one destination. A maze, where the only way out was to offer his heart to the Minotaur. A puzzle, whose last piece laid in the enemy’s death grip.

He wanted escape. Pardon. Liberation. He wanted loose ends and uncaring attention. He wanted normal circumstances and detachment.

He wanted what was.

(gone.)

He lifted his head up. Got to his feet. And the words Silas said fell to deaf ears.

It’s over.

The battle was lost. The king had won.

The foolish court jester, the prince only by title, had lived.

It’s over.

It was done and sealed. Settled. Finished.

He had let go of the rope (he had to).

He’s let go off the rope and was pulling, holding on, no longer.

He’s Jack Benjamin, Crown Prince of Gilboa, conspirator in a coup against the Great Silas, and this was how it ended.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for stopping by, reading, leaving kudos! You are my world, dear readers, lots of love. x


End file.
